Week 27 (In Utero): Mommy's Little Craft Project

It is weird to think that we are in our Third Trimester now. It has gone by so fast as compared with Marshall's pregnancy. Chloe is getting really big now. She is so much bigger than her brother was. She is much stronger too. She kicks really hard. So much so that the other night Marshall was laying on my stomach and she kicked him really hard in the stomach. He looked up at me with the sweetest SURPRISED expression. It was like his eyes said "Mommy your tummy poked me!"

Chloe is having a busy week though. We are really excited that on Wednesday we will get to see her on a sonogram and her furniture is delivered on Thursday.

Last Friday, I finally figured out how I wanted decorate the baby's room and I was eager to begin this little craft project for Baby Chloe's room. I essentially used the valance as my model; drew up some sketches and dragged my boys to Michael's early the next morning to buy paint, canvas and ribbon.

By the way, as I write this blog, it is as if she knows that I am thinking of her - she is kicking so hard that my stomach is moving around. Chris is actually getting to experience this since Marshall would always stop kicking as soon he would watch/feel.

Week 26 (In Utero): Can you say...Indecisive???

Well, now that the room is painted (since the room is empty it has become Marshall's "play room" this week), we started taking out the furniture from the boxes...and decided that we didn't think that the furniture went well in a little girls room. It's just too trendy of a color to have for a girl for the next 20 years. So we put everything back in its boxes and are returning the furniture tomorrow.

So we turn to the Internet to decide what would fit and spent most of today checking out all the baby furniture stores we could think of. We saw a few things we liked but found that they fell into two categories - "It's nice but if we go with this we need to repaint the room/get a different bedding set" and my favorite "Delivery will be 8-12 weeks."

As we turned the car toward home in disappointment and despair, we realized that Frisco had a baby store off of Preston. It was all reminiscent of a similar little drive up Preston we had last year when we were looking for accessories for Marshall's room last year. Lucky for us the baby store was having a liquidation clearance sale! We found the EXACT bedroom set that we loved at Stacy's Furniture's "Oh Baby!" but for half the cost. The best part is that it will be delivered and fully assembled in less than 2 weeks!

It was one of those moments where the clouds parted and the sun poked through. Baby room back on track! This is what we ended up getting all in White! (So imagine the crib in white and a dresser with three drawers in the middle with the cabinet doors on either side. Oh and please don't mind my photoshopping the hutch onto the dresser).

Week 25 (In Utero): Getting Busy in the Baby Room

Well, like with Marshall, Chris and I are starting to feel the pressure in getting the baby's room ready, and felt this surge to get busy and make that room ready! Especially now that we have the crib and upper part of the book case camped out in our dining room in boxes. The dresser and lower part of the book case is supposed to be arriving around June 20th.

Well we finally came to a decision not to do the wainscoting . I thought that even though it looks sharp as a contrast against the paint, it would feel too black-and-white in the room against the dark furniture. Chris and I think that for some reason Marshall's room was so much easier to figure out how to decorate - there are just so many options for little girls for room deco.

Chris and I came to a middle ground on the paint color (He liked a little darker shade and I like a little lighter shade of pink). It came out looking like a bubble gum sort of color. Emily, Chris and I work well into the wee hours of Sunday Morning having a painting party. We had a lot of fun chit-chatting and joking around. I think for a pink room, it came out pretty well.

I would really like to do some wall art that I paint free hand. I'm leaning toward something on canvas rather than a mural. So we'll see what Marshall lets me work on in the coming weeks. I can't wait to see it all come together.

Oh, Marshall helped a bit too!

Week 24 (In Utero): Regular Checkup and Update

Ms. Chloe had her checkup today and she is still doing really great (still measuring larger than Marshall). Sadly though we won't have any more scheduled sonograms so we won't get any great 3-D shots of her like we did Marshall. I think though, based on her previous sonograms, she's going to have Chris' head shape. Chris thinks she's going to look like me, but we'll see.

Marshall ended up going to bed early this evening and I became super motivated to finally clear out her room. Basically it was a room with no furniture and a huge pile of misc items, laundry, blankets, sheets, pillow cases, down comforters and featherbeds (I won't be posting a picture of that because it was just embarrasing). It's hard to get motivated to do up her room when there is such a huge mountain to move, literally... But it's finally done.

The next tricky part is figuring out how to decorate the room. We really like the wainscotting in Marshall's room but aren't sure if we also want it in Chloe's room. Hopefully we can figure out what we want by the weekend.

Week 22 (In Utero): Getting Down to Business

Well, now that we are about halfway through with this pregnancy, Chris and I have started to get things in order to make way for Ms. Chloe's arrival.

We found a really cute furniture set that works really well for the room's set up. We decided on an Expresso color (brown-black furniture) with a set that has a corner bookcase, crib and dresser.

We also took some time to register at Babies R'Us and Pottery Barn for the various girly themed items for her room. We are getting a cute floral bedding set from Pottery Barn Kids.

My dad also came over to take the guest room furniture, which he had actually bought for my brother about 8 years ago. At least it stays in the family. I am going to miss our guest room though.

Week 20 (In Utero): Sonogram and Update

Well Ms. Chloe is certainly making the most of her time inside Mommy-the-incubator. Her brother has really paved the way and stretched my womb, making it easy to grow larger than her brother at this same point in time. Luckily my weight gain has been a modest 6 1/2 pounds, but Ms. Chloe is already 12 ounces! She is in the 59th Percentile for her weight, where as Marshall was in the 35th. Ms. Chloe is also a little giant! She is about 9.5 inches long and is in the 69th percentile for her height. Again, Chris and I are still scratching our heads that our children are so tall! The purpose of the sonogram was to do the standard testing for any abnormalities of the babies organs or the Mommy parts. Both of us looked fine and healthy. Chris and I feel so excited and blessed that Chloe is coming into this world so healthy.

Inaugural Post - Chloe Jane (Week 16 in Utero)

Welcome to the inaugural post for Marshall's sister, Chloe Jane Loomis. Chris has his mind made up, which is very unlike him because normally he asks me 5 million times "are you sure about this?" And unlike me, who usually makes a decision within a few minutes and sticks with it, was indecisive on the name. But this time Chris' mind was very much made up and and he thinks her name should be Chloe. Lucky for him I concur. Chloe has a sort of spunkyness about it that I think this baby has. From the first sonogram where she just barely had an arm, seemed to be waving at us saying, like it or not folks, here I come.

We had our gender sonogram yesterday and it's official - it's a girl! The first image on the scree was her little legs spread apart. Unlike Mr. Marshall, who kept crossing his legs and we had to go to the sonogramist a few times before we found out his gender, our baby girl was so good and wanted to make sure that there wasn't a question in our minds that her room should be painted pink instead of blue. She is still very skinny since she is still so young, but she should start "porking" up soon - I definitely am!! The books say she is supposed to be 4 1/2 inches long at this age but she was measuring at about 5 1/2 -6 inches yesterday! Another tall baby? Who knew that two short people = tall genes!

I'm also starting to feel the first flutterings of her moving around. Chris and I are both so amazed at how quickly this pregnancy is going, but Marshall's just seemed to drag on forever. Maybe we were just so excited about the transition we would be making in our lives from DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) to a Family! I think it was the best decision of our lives. We are equally excited about our spunky girl's arrival in September.

Video:

Baby Number 2 (Copied from Marshall's Blog) - Week 12 in Utero

Surprise! As you can see from the photo, we are expecting another baby on September 27th. For those of you doing the mental math, Marshall will be 11 months old when his sibling comes. It was quite a surprise that despite it taking us 5 years to have Marshall, we became pregnant within two months of having Marshall. We were so happy to have Marshall in our lives that we knew that we'd have another baby within two years anyways. BTW - you can get pregnant while breastfeeding! :-)

It was very convenient that we tried so hard to have Marshall that we had an extra pregnancy test laying around the house. It was an odd feeling to have so many years of negative results, and then to take one at 4am, which was the time I was waking up with Marshall at the time, and have it come back positive so fast. Poor Chris was out of town on business and so I called him and woke him up at 4 am to tell him the news. I think we were in shock for a while , but were both so excited that Marshall would have a playmate. It was especially ironic because Chris' mom had asked us a few days before when we were going to have the next one. She always knows things before we do...

When I tried to call the doctor's office to make an appointment, the receptionist was confused as to when to put me on the schedule since it had been a year since my last period, and had to put me on hold to call the nurse. My doctor's nurse picked up the phone and said - Oh my gosh is this Jane Loomis?! - Justine loves me. :-) It was funny going into the doctor's office for the initial exam because EVERYBODY we met said "Didn't you just have a baby?!" It's especially bad when the insurance person at the end of the visit says that they just closed out our previous claim.

At our 12 week visit, our sonogramist, who is really amazing and was able to predict the timing of our second miscarriage, said "don't paint the walls pink just yet, but it looks like your having a girl." Chris and I both had feelings that we'd have a girl. If the gender is confirmed at our gender sonogram on April 21st, we will be naming our baby Chloe Jane. Chris picked out her name (as I picked out Marshall's). Also when we get confirmation, I will make her (or him) their own blog.

Other Photos:

Week 7 (In Utero) Photos From First Ultrasound